Chapter Text
Yuuji, with his eyes pleading, lips jutting in a pout, and arms extended out towards the King of Curses sitting atop his throne of skulls, asked, “Hug?”
Sukuna sneered. How dare this brat, this fucking five-year-old who ate his finger and sealed the great King of Curses inside his tiny body, look at him with sadness all because he hadn't experienced a hug in a long, long, long time.
"No," Sukuna replied.
The brat's response was to widen those already wide and glossy eyes and make his lips wobble. Does this brat really wanna be beheaded?
"But Juguna, evewybody wikes hugs," Yuuji said, like it was the most reasonable thing in the world.
"Well I don't. Now scram before I behead you." And Sukuna closed his eyes and ignored the brat. He’ll get bored and run away on his own. Who cares what he does in his domain. If he goes to the deeper part of the blood red lake surrounding his throne and dies, good riddance.
After a short while though, he heard grunts and sounds of exertion, and when he opened his eyes, he saw the brat doing his best to climb Sukuna’s throne.
“What the fuck are you doing, brat?”
“I gonna…give Juguna…a…hug!” Yuuji exclaimed as he pushed himself upwards the skull throne, obviously a strenuous task for a five-year-old.
Sukuna scoffed, closing his eyes again. “Suit yourself. If you fall and impale yourself, I’m going to laugh at you and make it worse.”
Still straining to climb the steep and spikey throne of skulls, Yuuji replied, “Juguna…is mean! But! I…gonnna…gives hugs…to Juguna…and Juguna’s nots be…mean to…Yuuji…anymowe!”
Sukuna didn’t even bother to answer and ignored the brat again. And still ignored him when the sounds of struggle and exertion became whimpers and sniffles.
He could smell the scent of blood, no doubt from the brat scraping his exposed skin on the sharp parts of the skulls.
“Juguna,” Yuuji called out as he sniffled, “heps, pease?” (help, please)
Sukuna ignored him, didn’t even bother opening his eyes.
“Pease, Juguna?”
Sukuna still ignored him.
“Pease, pease, pease?”
Sukuna opened his eyes a fraction to see the boy straining on his tiptoes to reach a bovine horn above him. In the route the brat chose towards Sukuna, the horn he was trying to reach was the only nearest and safest route. Both sides were filled with thick, pointed bones.
Just as Yuuji tried to stretch to reach the horn, the skull one of his feet was standing on gave. Yuuji gasped, quickly trying to claw at whatever purchase he could get his hands on, only to scrape his palms on the protruding horns and broken bones of the throne of skulls.
Yuuji could only close his eyes as he fell, waiting for the impact and inevitable pain of falling on the sharp bones and landing on the blood red waters.
But it never came because when he opened his eyes, he found himself face to face with an unimpressed Sukuna.
Yuuji’s lips wobbled and his eyes watered and he cried, “Jugunaaaaa!”
The loud wail on his ear made Sukuna’s face scrunched up.
“There, there,” Sukuna half-heartedly said, patting the boy on the back.
“I is dead!” Yuuji declared, fisting the curse’s white kimono and crying on the crook of Sukuna’s neck, the sound of which was thankfully muffled by his scarf.
Sukuna rolled his eyes. “You’re not dead, brat. Stop being dramatic.” (But he didn’t stop patting the boy’s back to calm him.)
It took a little while before Yuuji’s sobs dwindled to the occasional hiccups. But he didn’t let go of Sukuna (nor did the King of Curses let go of the child). Soon, the crying fit exhausted Yuuji and he was soon fighting a losing battle against sleep.
“Juguna,” Yuuji called out as he laid comfortably in Sukuna’s embrace, face mushed against the other’s chest, voice a bit hoarse from the crying.
“What is it, brat?”
“Hugs?”
Silence.
Then Yuuji felt one of Sukuna’s arms shift to pull him closer.
“Fine.”
A small smile painted on Yuuji’s lips as sleep finally claimed him.
Sukuna wouldn’t let him out of his domain (or out of his hold) until the brat woke up in the real world.